Colorado Serenade (1946) Reviews

Inexpensive Cinecolor adds little to this standard Eddie Dean music western from bottom-of-the-barrel company PRC. Dean, as always, plays himself, a rancher taking up the fight against power hungry saloon operator Duke Dillon (Dennis Moore) and his secret boss and foster-father Dad Dillon (Warner P. Richmond). The situation gets complicated with the arrival of Roy Hilton (Forrest Taylor), a circuit judge assigned to look into the lawlessness of Rawhide City, and Nevada (David Sharpe), a young drifter who at first appears to be taken in by the gang but who in reality as a secret agent working for the judge. The latter, as it turns out, is Duke Dillon's real father and a final confrontation between the forces of good and evil leaves bodies littering the streets of Rawhide. When not engaged in fisticuffs, Eddie Dean performs his own "Western Lullaby", "Ridin' Down to Rawhide" and Ridin' to the Top of the Mountain", as well as the traditional "Home on the Range". Colorado Serenade's working title was Gentlemen with Guns, a cognomen resurrected later that year for a Larry "Buster" Crabbe western. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi